Totally unrelated to drug policy… While you occasionally see a spam comment that gets through the filter, the vast majority of them are filtered by Akismet, which keeps statistics of the filtering it does on this site.
Sometime in late March, there was a remarkable drop-off in spam comments, and I’m curious as to whether anyone knows why this is (prior to that point, the numbers had been growing each month as more spammers became aware of the site).
Past year numbers
- 2011-08: 69,478
- 2011-09: 80,320
- 2011-10: 88,481
- 2011-11: 194,586
- 2011-12: 149,190
- 2012-01: 123,528
- 2012-02: 114,190
- 2012-03: 99,521
- 2012-04: 1,953
- 2012-05: 3,954
- 2012-06: 3,899
- 2012-07: 4,865
perhaps our aversion to Prohibitionist baloney has given us some form of virtual mystery meat resistant power?
timing isn’t quite right, but this happened earlier this year:
http://news.cnet.com/Seattle-Spammer-arrested/2100-7348_3-6187754.html
Here is more BS by our friend Kevin Sabet
http://addiction-dirkh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/praising-marijuana-prohibition.html
This was linked from Transform in the UK
What an appropriate post to place a link to remarks by Kevin Sabet! 🙂
Make sure you check out the extended comments below the article. Steve Rolles does a remarkable job there.
indeed!
thanks Dave… (and they always say Dave’s not here)
Went to that article and found that http://www.drugfree.org/ allows comments (moderated). I’ve been wandering around in there (go to NewsRoom) and using a moderately sharpened stick to do some poking. In fact the article High-Potency and Synthetic Marijuana Can Harm Developing Embryo’s Brain had no comments…
Now that was particularly bad.
My favorite part was when, soon after saying that “raw, crude marijuana is not medicine”, he says “Users who try to quit experience withdrawal symptoms that include irritability, anxiety, insomnia, appetite disturbance, and depression.”
Yeah, the symptoms they were alleviating with “raw, crude marijuana” return when they stop using. Big surprise!
And check the references. All the usual suspects. Self-referential, much like religious propaganda. You got a few characters who all say the same things and use each other as “references”.
And, yes, Rolles offered some excellent rebuttal. I may be (let’s face it – I am) biased, but IMHO Steve handily won the pre-debate, spelling errors aside.
It is possible Akismet improved their filters. It looks like it began rising immediately afterwards, as spammers began figuring out how to get around it again.